September 25, 2012

I'm not saying it was good or wise for them to make the "tomahawk chop" gesture while yelling in a way that the news report characterizes as an "Indian war whoop." And Scott Brown has said he doesn't condone that sort of acting out, but I just want to specify that the staffers' gesturing and noise-making doesn't count as antagonism toward Native Americans.

Someone doing the "tomahawk chop" is himself playing the role of Indian. This Indian character making a stereotypical gesture can't be read as expressing hostility toward Indians. The Indian is his hero. At a certain level of political correctness, the tomahawk chop is considered offensive to Native Americans, but somehow it's not offensive enough to have stopped Atlanta Braves fans from doing it.

Anyway, these fake Indians, the staffers, are pretending to be real Indians, miming an attack on Elizabeth Warren on the ground that she's a fake Indian. There's a lot of fakery in there, but no one is expressing the view that it's bad to be Indian. That's all I wanted to say, and I do understand how real Indians might prefer not to be represented as stereotypical characters. And maybe they'd object even more if a non-Indian got a great job from an employer who was practicing affirmative action in hiring or self-promoting by claiming diversity.

"And maybe they'd object even more if a non-Indian got a great job from an employer who was practicing affirmative action in hiring or self-promoting by claiming diversity."

Let's examine this a bit more closely. What exactly is wrong with Warren falsely claiming to be an Indian? Are you suggesting that she deprived an Indian of his (undeserved) job at Harvard? Or perhaps that she deprived her students of the less-than-fully-qualified instructor they deserved?

The fundamental idea of affirmative action (which I believe you support) is that qualified people should be denied jobs so that less qualified people can have them. Once you start there, what difference does it make which unqualified person you choose?

The offense lies in "Cherokee Liz" claiming to be of Indian descent when she is not, and using that to gain employment under Affirmative Action rules.

And athletic teams using Indian names, mascots, and symbolic "chops," or whatever is not intended as demeaning to American Indians as general thing -- rather to the contrary - always excepting such behavior as exhibited by UI's "Chief Illiniwok" in the past, and then it was the behavior that was offensive, not the concept of an Indian mascot.

Was reading up on the history of the Carthage Red Men. It was considered offensive for the century and a half when they called themselves Redmen, but apparently a simple tap on the space bar followed by another on the shift key were deemed an adequate remedy.

I do understand how real Indians might prefer not to be represented as stereotypical characters.

But stereotyping people based on race or national origin isn't antagonistic towards them if it's only meant to antagonize one person who claimed, albeit dubiously, to be of that race/national origin. Okay.

The Atlanta Braves (who are the the Boston Braves) never used the tomahawk chop until Deon Sanders came from Florida State as a Falcon defensive back and punt return man, and then went on to the Braves as an outfielder.

It was done in Atlanta as an honor to Dion, who was famous for his Atlanta type aphorism that goes,"it's not bragging if you can do it."

The Atlanta Braves (who are the the Boston Braves) never used the tomahawk chop until Deon Sanders came from Florida State as a Falcon defensive back and punt return man, and then went on to the Braves as an outfielder.

It was done in Atlanta as an honor to Dion, who was famous for his Atlanta type aphorism that goes,"it's not bragging if you can do it."

Lefties, please consider the evil times America lived under in 1965 when that Carson episode I linked actually happened: LBJ was succeeding with "The Great Society;" Civil Rights were awakening; a higher percantage of people were "paying forward."

Most Indians I have met expressed frustration at the PC campaign to stop using "Indian" as a name for sports teams. Dartmouth and Stanford both look like pussies for changing, especially Dartmouth which began as a school for Indian children in 1759.

Even Indians that would know say Fauxcahontas isn't of native american background. My guess is that it was just a good story when she was in her undergrad hippy days clad in fringed jacket and headband, stoned out of her mind. Happened to a lot of liberals, don't watch "Easy Rider" while smokin hashish.

"What exactly is wrong with Warren falsely claiming to be an Indian? Are you suggesting that she deprived an Indian of his (undeserved) job at Harvard? Or perhaps that she deprived her students of the less-than-fully-qualified instructor they deserved?"

No, she deprived a non-Indian, non-plagiarizer of a position at Harvard Law School by pretending to be an Indian. Harvard, of course, was a co-conspirator and, If I were a student, I would be concerned at being deprived of a fully qualified, non-plagiarizing instructor who was not a fake (or real) Indian.

No one did a more heartfelt "Tomahawk Chop" than Jane Fonda did. But those were very different times, indeed.

I'll never forget those days, when the idiot Jane Fonda was still married to the lunatic Ted Turner. At one Braves game, everyone was doing the tomahawk chop, but when they did a closeup on Jane, she was doing it sideways. In her mind, that was more respectful.

Elizabeth Warren is known for repeating "middle class getting hammered" 10-20 times in a single speech. The hammering gesture became her trademark with all her detractors. Including those that have no intention of voting for Brown.

Tell the propanganda press trying to gin up another macaca moment to go fuck themselves. Nothing is more offensive than trying to force fit one's self into a victim group to get a job, raise, or more fucking votes. Tell them to go fuck themsleves. And use the "finger in hole" gesture when doing it.

Interestingly enough, I have the same family story. My grandmother came from Ada, Oklahoma in the late 1800s, early 1900s, and my mother had high cheek bones. The family story was that mom was 1/4 Cherokee.

My sister and I even laughed about putting that on our college and grad school applications, but we did not because it would be lying. While we may have some trace of Cherokee dna, we were raised white by other people who were raised white. So we did not lie and put that family lore down.

I thought Boston's greatest moment in early American history happened when a bunch of white guys dressed up as Indians to make a political statement. Was I mistaken?

"But don't you think there's a time and place for these kind of jokes? And that this wasn't it?"

Really? I think that the ONLY time it would be appropriate for a bunch of people to show up in blackface, would be to protest someone's lying about being African-American in order to game the Affirmative Action system, meant to try to right past discrimination.

Whatever one thinks of that system, and quota-based "diversity", that is its ostensible purpose, I think.

The gestures are clearly not directed at, nor intended to insult, AUTHENTIC Indians. The Brown supporters are obviously mocking Warren for falsely claiming Indian ancestry.

I'd take it as a good sign if I were the Brown campaign.

If a few seconds of video of exuberant Brown supporters mocking Warren with tomahawk chops is all the dirt the Warren campaign can feed to the press to try to discredit Brown (and take some of the heat off her), then I assume he is running a pretty clean campaign.

"Let's examine this a bit more closely. What exactly is wrong with Warren falsely claiming to be an Indian? Are you suggesting that she deprived an Indian of his (undeserved) job at Harvard? Or perhaps that she deprived her students of the less-than-fully-qualified instructor they deserved? The fundamental idea of affirmative action (which I believe you support) is that qualified people should be denied jobs so that less qualified people can have them. Once you start there, what difference does it make which unqualified person you choose?"

Click on my "affirmative action" tag if you want to figure out what I've said on the subject. What I support and what I don't support is rather nuanced and you are making much cruder statements that I'm going to engage with right now.

But it's at least obvious that if an employer chooses a policy of giving weight to the applicants' race or ethnicity and if that program is structured to satisfy the law, that if an applicant represents his ethnicity or race falsely in a way that gives him an advantage within that system, he's behaved badly and taken an advantage he didn't deserve. It would be the same as misstating a qualification.

Now, obviously, there's a difference is the applicant is genuinely mistaken. There are still victims. Perhaps the applicant was so far out ahead of all the other candidates that the additional weight given to that factor didn't matter. But even then, if the school touts its "diversity" when that's not there, then it acquires regard it doesn't deserve (though seeming to have diversity plays some of the role that actual diversity might play).

This is a difficult problem to think through if you believe affirmative action is a negative and race and ethnicity shouldn't be a factor. (You can still try!) It's also hard for people to distinguish between the issue whether affirmative action/diversity is desirable and whether it's unconstitutional.

It's certainly possible to think that it's within the range of choices that are available to the school and to still think it's a bad policy. I would recommend that everyone imagine himself as a person who thinks those 2 things simultaneously, to fully think like that person and understand what that's like.

I have a hard time engaging on affirmative action with anyone who won't or can't do that.

I have some experience with the Yakimas in eastern Washington. You need to get to know them one on one. They are quite astute when it comes to phoneys. One of the Tribal Council members I knew said with respect to a wannabe: I knew this guy before he started to braid his hair and became an indian. They do know who the phonies are.

I was honored to be inducted in the Yakima Warriors society because apparently they appreciate service to country, and derivatively to the tribe. The Yakima Warriors served their country in WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. A great bunch of men. It wasnt about what you said you did; it was about what you did. I wear my Yakima Warrior lapel pin very proudly.

Apparently Warren's internal polls are telling her that the Fauxcahontas stuff is hurting her significantly.

But what about that unlicensed law practice of hers====================That is percolating.

1. People are now digging to see if Warren had an active law license ANYWHERE when she was not just foing private client work, but filing activist suits in Fed Court on behalf of liberal groups.They are noting that even if a formal investigation can be stalled until after the election..it is still possible enough media interest and political pressure can be put to bear on Texas and NJ..they will get disclosure of the period s Warren had an active, vs. lapsed law license.Several lawyers have written in that it is highly unlikely Warren had a license in Texas after the 1980s. And don't see how Warren - 20 years in Massachusetts - could do NJ's Continuing Legal Education requirements. And if you don't do the obligated CLE within a certain period, NJ's policy is to suspend the active license until the CLE obligation is completed..

2. People are also trying to get the Havard Law School Faculty and Administrators policy guide and regulation book to see what it says about requirements that have to be met in order to do private business in Harvard offices, licensing requirements of law professors doing legal activity outside teaching and publishing.

One Mass lawyer on the Legal Insurrection site said he looked at a dozen other Harvard Law Faculty lawyers he knew, or knew of, on their license status. At a Mass Bar site he uses to check parties in any court case he is involved in. All of them, including Dershowitz and Tribe, have active Massachusetts licenses. He said he thinks that Warren, at the least, is probably "atypical" of Harvard Law's permanent staff of attorneys working as professors or Administrators.

My cousins are Natives. They love the Braves. And here's the thing that people living back east away from the reservations don't understand. Drive through NM sometime and see how many Redskins, Seminoles and Braves gear you see. Most are proud and support "their" teams.

Faux outrage over fake Indians who never for an instant represent themselves as Real Indians mocking a Faux Indian who repeatedly claimed she was a bona-fide Redskin.

OOoops!Did I say Redskin?Sorry, Outraged! and Shocked Lefties!And yes, Mass Voters, Elizabeth Warren is such a DC Insider that she roots for the Redskins and not the NE Patriots. And you all know that Scott Brown is a solid Red Sox and NE PAtriot fan and can likely name 15 Bruins players. (And all the Mass American Idol contestents, including any bedwetting liberal sorts)

I would point out when the Florida State started the chop stuff, the Seminole Indians came out four score in favor of Florida State. This was back in the ultra PC days of getting rid of Indian refences to sports "mascots." And as mentioned above, the Seminoles are proud that they never surrendered. A good bunch of folks, imo.

IIRC, the NCAA ordered Florida State (my school) to drop the Seminole name and pick something else as it was offensive. FSU sued the NCAA to keep the name and were backed by the real Seminole Tribe of Florida. The NCAA backed down in the only case I am aware of that a school told the NCAA to stuff it. GO NOLES!!!!!

True Story: I was running on Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C> one afternoon a few years ago, and I saw a man (African American) standing alongside his car. It was festooned with stickers and badly drawn posters. He was shouting into a microphone something to the effect that "People would be outraged if we renamed the Washington Redskins and called them the Washington Cannibals, and the mascot was an African native with a bone in his nose, cooking a white man in a pot."

There is nothing racially or ethnically offensive about the tomahawk chop. Full stop. In the universe of ethnic/racial/cultural stereotypes it's a fucking compliment. So take it as such or fuck off. Efforts to make you think it's offensive or discriminatory are simply testing to see how easily you can be led about and whether you question authority ... or anything else.

Tomahawk chopping Elizabeth Warren is totally appropriate. Elizabeth Warren is a fake Indian and the tomahawk chop is a fake Indian move.

Question: Can Warren open a casino in Cambridge or wherever she claims ancestoral heritage? I think we should push this idea along to its natural and absurd conclusion that she could really make serious wampum, and not have to waste time earning chump change on a Senator's salary.

Road Kill--as a FSU guy myself, you are absoutely correct--the seminoles came down totally in favor of FSU and forced the NCAA to back down. there is a reason they were the only tribe never to surrender--a tough bunch of bastards.

"I would recommend that everyone imagine himself as a person who thinks those 2 things simultaneously, to fully think like that person and understand what that's like."

I live that persona, and have for decades where I have to face people of differing ethnicity and races applying for jobs. I've made hundreds of such decisions. Thankfully there is never really an occasion of two equally qualified applicants.

I have given the job on occasion to the less qualified based on some notion of affirmative action. I regret that now. I then felt I had lie to the person who I turned down. That should have been my clue. How do I tell someone that I chose not to hire them based on their race, which is not their fault, is unchangeable, and I did it because people they never knew were once upon a time unfairly treated just like I'm doing now.

I'm ashamed of my "sensitivity" now, and in fact was then. It was a weakness, a failure of logic, and unfair.

Although I want diversity in my organization, I don't see it as an unalloyed good, and I will not perpetuate racism to get it. I can help groups who may be disadvantaged, but not like that. The direct, personal nature of choosing a single individual based on race is simply wrong. Their race is not a disadvantage or a handicap like being blind that needs to be overcome and helped. Choosing people this way just creates new groups of aggrieved people, and I can't argue their point. We want the hate to go away, not simply switch sides.

Thing is that Warren posed as an Indian AND also as a Massachusetts bar certified lawyer. For I'm sure that her clients thought she had a bar licence. So it's her habit not to be what she says (or implies) she is. How is it that she is running for a high national office? Note the strange resemblance to the current President - which is that very simple questions have no answer. e.g. for Warren: What is your grandmother's maiden name? You practiced law - where were you licensed? and for Obama: When was your mother married? You were "a star student" - what professor remembers you? Maybe among the Democrats the call goes out for people with no past so that opposition research will be thwarted and then ... they get people with no past. If the liberals would acknowledge that the opposition to them has some real moral values and some real intellectual principles (which however the liberals oppose for reasons they state) it would improve public discourse. And also, it now seems, it would improve the quality of the people the Democrats are recruiting.

1. Neon Deon had it wrong. It's bragging if you CAN do it. If you CAN'T do it, it's lying, not bragging.

2. As for affirmative action, originally it was merely an effort to insure that qualified minority applicants were affirmatively identified so they could compete for a job. The idea that affirmative action means giving the job is a perversion of affirmative action.

3. What Brown's staff did was mockery. Mockery is a species of hubris. That's what makes offensive. But apparently leftists can only think skin deep.

This is a difficult problem to think through if you believe affirmative action is a negative and race and ethnicity shouldn't be a factor.

No it isn't.

I want you to imagine you are a person who thinks it's wrong to lie to get a job, and also thinks racial discrimination is bad. Now imagine the person you are imagining yourself to be is wearing a blue hat and watching a baseball game. I find it tiresome to talk to people who won't jump through little mental hoops as I instruct them to.

So, my dad's mother was 1/2 Cherokee (from Ada, OK). My mom's mother was 100% Puerto Rican. I have no tribal affiliation and no Shark tats. My kids are 1/2 Pacific Islander. The only race we care about is "human." We are each 100% pure-bred American mutts! Proud of it! -CP

I thought it was very funny in an endearingly sophmoric sort of way. If the staffers were making those sorts of calls to harass a *real* American Indian, that would be another story, but in the context of harassing Ms. Warren, it's an absolute hoot.

My kids go to middle & high schools whose mascots are collectively known around the area as The Tribe. We chop and War Hoop every game. Sometimes, our cheerleaders even make signs that say "Scalp 'em, Indians!" The Horrors....not really, my grandmother was a Cherokee. My kids are the Tribe.

The Chop is all good fun, the War Hoop makes brass players tired at the end of the game. The noise most people make is a women's noise, usually made when a new baby is born. While startling, there is not malice in it. I laugh when men do it thinking it is a war cry and make that cry of jubilee at every touchdown on Friday night.

Elizabeth Warren lying about her heritage to get diversity hire points, that's an outrage to my family. I have (and my kids will) earn everything they get in life. I have never checked the native American box on an employment or scholarship application because I am not a reservation Indian - some of whom are very poor and really need the help available to them.

But, given who did it, when, where, and why, it was disrespectful as hell.

It's disrespectful to mock somebody for lying about their ancestry to get a leg up, professionally, and who refuses to discuss the issue with actual tribes who aren't thrilled when people claim to belong to them when they do not?

Why does Warren warrant ANY respect?

For the record, Professor Althouse, you've written much nonsense in your life online, but this may well top it all. Congratulations. All racism is now not racism. You must be very proud.

How is mocking somebody for falsely claiming minority status "racist"?

How is it NOT racist for her to make the claim of minority status falsely? I note you didn't mention what Liz having done as being racist, so clearly, you have few problems with it.

Remember when she wanted to protect christine o'donnell and portray her as a constitutional expert?

No. Care to provide a link, oh drive-by troll?

ann althouse wants to clarify how something isn't offensive because the people who did the offensive action align with her politically.

And you wish to claim falsely claiming minority status to advance one's career isn't offensive as long as they side with you. Nice.

Although I want diversity in my organization, I don't see it as an unalloyed good, and I will not perpetuate racism to get it.

I argued, for years, that intellectual diversity is infinitely more important than skin color diversity.

A white and a black progressive have little difference in terms of their thought processes ("conservatives = evil"). How having massive groupthink improves anything is a mystery.

Indeed, as Brown was elected in a special election against a "no show" opponent in 2010

"Voters in Massachusetts correctly understand that this controversy is meaningless.

According to all available polling, voters simply don’t care about this controversy. At all. 72 percent of likely voters are aware of the flap over Warren’s heritage, and 69 percent of those say that it isn’t a significant story."

ie continuing to hard on a non-issue as well as being rude and crude is just politically stupid!

>

Again, seriously Althouse, do any of your con lemmings understand the concept of campaign politics or do they just fall in line w/you like sheep re: everything you post? Rhetorical.

Sorry, I don't read your blog, because I swore off ever linking to it after you destroyed all Meade's participation in your comments section, you losers who can't tolerate debate, you censors, you weaklings.

Maybe you wrote something interesting this time that I'd respond to, but you're on my permanent shit list. I will not give you my time to see if your arguments have any value. I won't delete you either, even though you're trying to use my blog to get yourself some traffic. I don't delete things like that. I accept debate and controversy. I'm not a weakling and a censor like you. And I actually wish I could interact with what you have if it had some value beyond your typical Althouse is being stupid again. (Really intelligent to come up with that, little schoolboys.)

I'd even send you Instapundit traffic this week if you had some decent stuff to respond to. But I won't know if it's decent, because I don't read it, because I won't link to it.

harp on a non-issue ... just like Obama's nationality as the far right fringe marches on to oblivion!

So, again, shiloh is coming out in FAVOR of fraud.

Anybody shocked?

Let's see if I get this straight: conservative uses the word "macaca" and it's front page news for months.

Progressive lies about being a minority to get a nice job (and stops lying the MOMENT she gets the job), produces fraudulent academic work, and is possibly guilty of fraud in regards to her legal career --- and it's a non-issue.

To be a progressive politician. One would be held to literally no standards. Warren could hit a dozen children, killing all of them, and shiloh would condemn anybody for commenting.

Seems to me that since we are talking about Boston this is resonant with the Boston Tea Party. The colonials dressed up as native Americans not out of disrespect but (because they needed disguises and) to borrow some of their dignity.

Seems to me that since we are talking about Boston this is resonant with the Boston Tea Party. The colonials dressed up as native Americans not out of disrespect but (because they needed disguises and) to borrow some of their dignity.

"The chief of the Cherokee Nation on Wednesday demanded an apology from Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) for what he called an "uneducated, unenlightened and racist portrayal of native peoples" by senior staff on his campaign and in his Senate office.

At a recent campaign rally, senior Brown staffers led a crowd of Brown supporters in a series of "war whoop chants" and "tomahawk chops," an attempt to mock Elizabeth Warren for citing her Native American ancestry in a Harvard guidebook.

"The Cherokee Nation is disappointed in and denounces the disrespectful actions of staffers and supporters of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. The conduct of these individuals goes far beyond what is appropriate and proper in political discourse. The use of stereotypical 'war whoop chants' and 'tomahawk chops' are offensive and downright racist," said Bill John Baker, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, in a statement. "The individuals involved in this unfortunate incident are high ranking staffers in both the senate office and the Brown campaign. A campaign that would allow and condone such offensive and racist behavior must be called to task for their actions."

During the first debate between Brown and Warren, Brown told the audience that he could tell by looking at Warren, who was born in Oklahoma, that she does not have any Native American lineage. He later denied having said that."

Ann, notifying you that you've been mocked isn't "begging." It's just Southern politeness, of which I'm a great fan, that compels me to tell you why your ears are burning.

The fact that you hold a grudge because you married a troll has nothing to do with the issue, which you'll never address, because you've built yourself a convenient excuse not to. So, well, congratulations on your bubble! I hope you and your betrothed are very happy in it.